Baby Squared : poop

Taking it Silly and Slow

Roper — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:25:00 GMT

As you may have picked up if you've been reading this blog for awhile, I am a very silly person. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have an intensely silly side which balances out my incredibly serious and sophisticated side (cough cough).

So I am therefore quite psyched that my gals are now entering the age of prime verbal silliness -- you know, when you crack up over words like "underpants" and (my personal favorite) "poop" and where nonsensical utterances like "you're a waffle head!" win big, gleeful giggles. (Just a few months ago, this kind of thing was more likely to get a solemn disputation: "No I'm not, I'm just Clio.")

Anyway, the gals and I have got a new favorite silly game, called "Hi, Mister ______ pants!" Basically, I just say this repeatedly, filling in the silliest possible words I can think of. Hi, Mister puppy pants! Hi, Mister bagel pants! Hi, Mister potty pants! (Two syllable words work best, and foods / animals / bathroom-related words are preferable.) The girls just think this is the funniest freakin' thing they have ever heard. Then they jump in, too, with their own Mister pantses: Hi, Mister yogurt pants! Hi, Mister Daddy pants! Hi, Mister Curious George pants!

And we all laugh. Clio's got this high, ticklish sounding laugh. Elsa, meanwhile, has a funny, guttural snicker. Damn, is there anything better in the world than the sound of babies and kids laughing?

So, that's the silly part of this post. Now, onto the slow. (I know, I know. Usually I stick to roughly one topic, or at least link them thematically, but I just don't have it in me today.)

We've had a bit of a breakthrough realization when it comes to Clio's tendency to freak out. Specifically, how she flips out when we don't say the right thing in response to something she says. We've felt like we're walking on eggshells lately -- one wrong word, and she starts screaming No, don't say it!! Don't say it!! Don't say it!! And there's pretty much no way to undo it we're fucked.

But sometimes, what she screams is "Don't say it yet." And what we've finally come to realize (duh) is that it's not so much what we say to her, it's when we say it. She wants to get her entire sentence out before we respond. If our "yeah" steps on the back of her sentence by even a half beat, she's pissed. She feels like she's not being listened to.

So now, we wait. Which can be difficult. Because it can take a long time for Clio to get a sentence out, especially when it's a long and complex one. In fact, she really seems to like putting together long and complex sentences (I suspect she'son the advanced side when it comes to this particular ability) and I think she's proud of herself when she does it, which makes it all the more infuriating when some big stupid oaf of a grown-up ruins the ending.

So, we're getting a lot better at waiting. Which requires slowing ourselves down a bit. We're so used to operating at full speed, in everything we do, that it's tough to change gears. But by waiting for the girls to get all their words out, by replying slowly and deliberately, and by generally taking things easier and at a more relaxed pace -- whether it's brushing teeth or putting baby dolls to bed or stacking all the books just so -- I think all of us end up feeling less stressed and more on the same wavelength. A slower, less frenetic one.

Hi,...Mister.....Pokey....pants.

Positive Reinforcement

Roper — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:48:00 GMT

We're trying to do more of this around the Baby Squared household, as a means of fending off the whacking, kicking, hair pulling, whining, shouting, pants-pooping and other nastiness that seems to have proliferated 'round these parts over the past month or so.

Partially as a result of the suggestion made by several fabulous readers/commenters on this very blog, we got ourselves a couple of "Responsibility Charts" by Melissa & Doug. (This is not a paid endorsement, however if Melissa & Doug, Inc. would like to send me some free stuff, I'd be more than happy to be a total blog whore and write about it here.) There are a bunch of "responsibility" magnets to choose from, ranging from very preschool-appropriate stuff like "keep your hands to yourself" to stuff I hope we won't have to use for awhile, like "Don't use bad language." Next to each one, there are spaces to put happy face magnets.

There are also a couple of blank responsibility magnets you can write stuff one (dry erase!) so on each girl's chart there's currently one magnet that says "Poop in potty." (This is still a bit of an issue for Elsa.) Alastair pointed out that "potty," probably would have been sufficient. But I say, anyone who comes into our home had better be prepared for the fact that poop is a frequent point of discussion.

When we first put the charts up, we made the obvious, idiotic mistake of putting them low enough on the wall that the girls could reach them. Naturally, they thought they were toys and started moving all the magnets around. (Duh.) Now, they're high enough up that only Mommy and Daddy can reach. So, we now administer magnets for good behavior and aborted bad behavior, and shamelessly dangle the promise of magnets in front of the girls as an enticement to -- to choose a random example -- poop in the potty. Or say please and thank you, or pick up their toys when we ask them to.

We'd been a beet stymied by how to deal with the "things not to do" categories, as in "no whining," and "keep your hands to yourself." We were sort of working on the idea that we'd award a magnet if, for example, the girls managed to work out a hair-pulling / pushing / hitting bout on their own, without parental intervention, or if they nipped a whine in the bud when it was pointed out to them. But that didn't seem quite right, so now we're trying to focus on "catching them being good." (Thank you, to the potential babysitter we recently interviewed, who gave us the term!)

This morning, for example, I saw what could have been a potentially violent situation resolve itself quite beautifully. Elsa was sort of bopping a toy on Clio's head -- lightly, and Clio was laughing -- but it was the sort of thing that I could tell was about to turn ugly. Then, Clio said, as reasonable as can be, "I don't want you to do that, Elsa," and Elsa, by God, stopped doing it! It was miraculous. And I told them so (in slightly different words) and gave them each a magnet for keeping their hands to themselves.

We haven't quite figured out the best way to tie the number of magnets to an actual reward (beyond the magnets themselves) but Alastair tried telling them they needed to get up to ten, and they'd get a treat (i.e. a piece of Halloween candy), and that seemed to work well. It's also an excellent excuse to hang onto all the Halloween candy just a leetle bit longer. For them, of course.

It is kind of funny, though, to look at their charts, and see all the magnets lined up for the "easy" stuff like brushing teeth and picking up toys. (And, in Clio's case, pooping on the potty. (Can I manage to say "poop" ten times in this post? If I can, I'm going to give myself a Reeses!) I kind of feel like we should tie the rewards to a distribution of magnets across the more challenging categories as well. It's quite the science.

But we're not only relying on the chart for positive reinforcement. We're trying hard to vocally recognize good behavior in general. Not that we haven't always, to some degree, but it seems more important than these days. We're pretty pooped out from having to be constantly reprimanding and warning. It makes us feel like jumping off the poop deck of very large ship. (One big enough to have a poop deck.)

Shoot. That's only eight.

Poop. poop.

Mmm....candy.

Telling stories

Roper — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:27:00 GMT

When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me "e-Jane" stories. "e-Jane" was the main character, and she had all sorts of e-ventures, wherein she encountered e-goats and e-elves, flew e-planes and climbed e-mountains, and engaged in other silly e-xploits. The "E" prefix wasn't because my mother was way ahead of the technology curve or anything. (While e-Jane might indeed have gotten e-mail in one of the tales my mother spun, it was most decidedly of the paper variety.)

She came up with e-Jane as my fictional handle because I went through a phase when didn't like being called "Janey." But everyone called me that, and there was no way they were going to stop -- Jane is such a serious name for a preschooler -- so she liberated me from the name in fiction, as e-Jane. And I loved hearing e-Jane stories. They were a bedtime treat that lasted well into my grade school years and beyond. Books are great, and being read to is great, but there's nothing quite like being told a story.

Thing is, it's not that easy to make up stories on the fly. You'd think that, being a writer, I'd know how to spin a tale out of nothing. Au contraire, mes freres (et soeurs). Actually, I think it's in part because I'm a writer -- I do most of my thinking on paper or onscreen -- that I'm not the best impromptu oral storyteller. This was clearly evidenced last night when I made my first serious attempt at telling the girls an "Elsa and Clio" story before bed.

We'd just read this weird book called Potty about all these jungle animals who try to use a potty, so I had jungle animals on the brain, and knew that the girls did too, so I thought they'd enjoy a story featuring jungle animals. And possibly a potty. Unfortunately, that was about as far as my whole concept went. So the story went something like this:

"Once upon a time, there were two little girls name Elsa and Clio. And one day, they came to a big jungle. Um...and they decided to explore the jungle...and..um...have a contest to see who was braver. And Elsa said, "I'm so brave, I'm going to go bring back the biggest animal of all!" and Clio said, "No, I'm the bravest, and I'm going to bring back the biggest animal of all!"

So they both went into the jungle and when they came back, Elsa was carrying a huge elephant, and it was so big that it was...bigger than all the trees and...yeah, it was just really big. But Clio also had a really big animal....a giant giraffe! And this giraffe was so big that it...I mean, its neck...reached all the way up to the sky. And, so...they both had really big animals. And they were both really brave."

The real Elsa, I should note, was totally loving this story, sitting up on the edge of her bed, looking at me with rapt attention. Clio, meanwhile, was lying down and looking over at me like, "what the hell is this supposed to be?"

I continued: "So, then Elsa said, well, I can....lift my elephant up...and teach him to stand on his head! So she flipped the elephant over with one hand, because she was so strong, and so smart and he stood on his head. And then Clio said, "well, I can also...um, I can teach my giraffe to dance!" So she...um...put on a CD and taught the giraffe how to dance and the giraffe danced all around the elephant standing on his head."

(The real Clio liked this."That's silly," she said, and smiled, finally.)

Now I was on fire: "And then, Elsa and Clio's mommy came along, and she said, 'Wow, you guys are so brave! And so....talented! But now it's time to go home..."

"And eat lunch!" said the real Clio.

"Right! It was time to eat lunch. But, the mommy said, first you have to turn the elephant back over and make the giraffe stop dancing! Because if you don't...well, that won't be good and we can't go home and have lunch. So Elsa said OK, and flipped the elephant back over, and Clio told the giraffe to stop dancing, and he did, and then Elsa and Clio went home and ate lunch. And do you know what they had? They had ... blueberries with ladybug sauce, and eggs with...elephant poop, and waffles with.... a snake on top."

The girls liked all this, but they wanted to talk more about the elephant poop. They decided that it had hair and arms and a nose and a mouth. (Thus contradicting Elsa's earlier assertion that poop doesn't have a mouth.) And they seemed far more entertained by this than they had by my finely crafted allegorical tale of human folly and the availabilty of CD players in the jungle. Go figure.

The moral of this (non) story? My mom's e-Jane stories probably weren't that good either, as stories go. But they were silly and I was the star and I sure loved hearing her tell them. Which is much more important than plot. So until the girls develop a keenly honed sense of narrative arc -- which I'm still working on at 35 -- I can probably get away with inverted elephants, dancing giraffes, and anthropomorphized poop. The end.

The frog in my throat, and other calamities

Roper — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:18:00 GMT

I've had a cold this week, no doubt partly as a result of the exhaustion and sleeplessness of our potty training intensive last weekend. The other day, my voice sounding particularly scratchy and ridiculous, I told the girls that I had a frog in my throat. Of course, I quickly realized that this would sound absurd to them, and explained that I didn't actually have a frog in my throat; it was just an expression. (Like that would really clear things up.) "Sort of like a joke," I clarified. They chewed on this for a little while (not literally), and somehow it became, "You have a frog in your mouth so that's why you make a funny joke!"

I rather like this interpretation -- that there's some kind of comedian amphibian in my mouth, and every time I open my mouth to speak, he comes out with a joke -- "What is the deal with toads? I mean, they look like frogs, but the fuckers can't swim!" -- in his hoarse (not horse) froggy voice.

There have been some other prime examples of two-year-old literalism lately. We've had some difficulty with getting Elsa to go #2 in the potty -- a very common toilet training issue, it seems -- and at one point we had the following exchange when she'd been holding it in so long that she appeared to be in some pain:

Me: You know, I think your tummy would feel a lot better if you got the poop out.

Elsa: Is there a poop in my tummy with my food?

Me: Well, sort of. The food you eat goes in your tummy, and some of it turns into poop, and then you need to get it out.

Elsa: (Delighted) There's a poop in my tummy with my food!

Me: (Abandoning any attempt at scientific accuracy) Yeah, and it's saying "Let me out! Let me out!"

Elsa: (Very serious) No, poop doesn't have a mouth.

It's true. As far as I know, poop doesn't have a mouth -- at least not one that's visible to the human eye. Poop, therefore, cannot have a frog in its mouth. This is rather comforting if you think about it. Then again, it makes going to the bathroom much less entertaining. Sorry. I'll stop talking about poop now. And frogs.

Of course, all is not completely literal in the Baby Squared household. There are times when the girls reach amazing heights of imagination bordering on surrealism. The other day, Clio was holding her phone (a non-working cell phone) up to her ear, "talking" to her grandma Jaycee. She asked me to hand her other toy phone, which I did, held it up to her other ear, and announced, "Now I look like a strawberry!" After I stopped laughing, I affirmed that, yes, that was exactly what she looked like. A very, very cute strawberry. (With a very cute sister)

Photo by Mara Brod

Potty Training: Is it time to get serious?

Roper — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:34:00 GMT

Whenever someone asks if we've started potty training the girls, I'm not quite sure what to say. In a way, yes, I guess we have. We try to get them to sit on the potty before bedtime and naptime, which they're usually amenable to, as long as they've got a couple of books to read. Every once in a while, they actually produce something, and they seem proud of themselves. But they seem just as happy to go in the diapers. Elsa does ask to sit on the potty now and then, but more often than not, it's a stalling technique -- she doesn't want to go to sleep or go upstairs and get ready for bed. Still, i's hard to say "no, you don't need to sit on the potty right now." Because every once in a while, she actually does go. She's the girl who cried potty.

During the day, however, when they're happily engaged in playing, the girls have no interest in potty breaks. They like to announce when they're making (or about to make?) a pee-pee or poo-poo, but when I ask or suggest sitting on the potty, they resist. And I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea (not to mention physically impossible) to *force* them, screaming and crying, to sit on the pot.

But I feel like they're getting closer to more "advanced" toilet training. They're starting to learn how to push down and pull up their pants. And God knows, they're obsessed with talking about pee and poop. Elsa's twin baby doll, who she's never really had a name for (she's called her Elsa, Cora -- same as Clio's, and [insert nonsense syllables here]) has recently been christened "Peep." I'm pretty sure this is a reference to pee, as opposed to the Easter-time marshmallow treat. And get this -- Clio has now decided to change the name of her twin baby doll from Cora to "Poop." Yes, folks, that's right. Elsa and Clio have beautiful, silky-haired, American Girl bitty baby twin dolls named Peep and Poop. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

So my question now is, should we be attempting to implement more regular and frequent "potty time" for the girls at this point? Or just continue to let things take their natural course?

I have to admit, that part of why we've been so relaxed about the whole toilet training is sheer laziness. Toilet training with twins presents some definite logistical challenges. If you pop one kid on the potty (I guess I'm saying potty again) you still need to worry about what the other one is up to. And, of course, that other one will inevitably take this unsupervised opportunity to draw on the coffee table or climb up onto a chair and start pulling knives out of the silverware drawer or trip and bump her head on something and start yowling.

The other option is to put twin #2 on the potty at the same time, if she's willing. But inevitably, while you are helping one kid get out of their diaper, the other one will get up off the potty and start running bare-ass naked around the house. And by the time you get her and bring her back -- and hopefully, she hasn't peed on the floor in the meantime -- the other one is up, and waddling around with her pants around her ankles. Like so many things with twins, it's rather like herding cats. Loud, silly, whiny, un-housebroken, disaster-prone, bare-assed cats. (Well, I suppose all cats are bare-assed.)

I know some people suggest letting your kids run around without diapers for a while and just putting them on the potty the second the need for it becomes obvious, but again, I think this would be really tricky with twins. While you're rushing one to the potty, the other one might be soaking your couch. Not cool.

Can I just hire someone to do this for us? Is there, like, Potty Training 911 for twins? The Potty Whisperer? Anything?

My stinky winky daughters

Roper — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:53:00 GMT

I thought that the whole phase of finding it funny to say things like "stinky poo poo" and "Pee-yew, stinky winky" and so on, came later. Like, at three or four or later. When the sense of taboo around these kinds of things was a little more developed. But apparently, two-and-a-half is not too young for kids to have a sense of the silly stinkies.

As usual, of course, we are partly to blame, for asking such stupid things as "who made a stinky poo poo?" And their regualr babysitter is apparently a big "Pee-yew"er, because sometimes when I change the girls' diapers or take their socks off they'll say "Pee-yew!" followed by a giggly "Adriana say that!" I suspect she is the one who put "stinky winky" into their vocabularies as well, because I don't recall either Alastair or I ever saying it. But this morning, the girls were drawing all manner of stinky-winky animals: a stinky winky penguin, a stinky winky whale, a stinky winky sheep. Our friend the stinky stinky bat was back, too.

But really, the stinky winky poo poo stuff is only one part of a recent language explosion that seems to have taken place. In the last week or two the girls' verbal skills have taken another quantum leap, and all of a sudden -- wow. They're yakking up a storm. Talking in full sentences and conjugating verbs like little madwomen. Starting to really get the concepts of past and future tense, even if they don't quite yet have a solid concept of time. Building their vocabularies daily. The things that come out of their mouths are constantly surprising me. (A recent favorite: after the girls got up from a nap, I was commenting on the girls' hair being a mess. Elsa held her hair out to the sides and said "My hair is WILD!!")

I'm feeling quite jealous right now of parents I know who are bringing their kids up bi- or tri-lingually, because it's so clear that this is the optimal time for kids to soak up a foreign language. We obviously can't do the full language immersion thing with our girls -- well, I suppose I could start speaking only my intermediate-level Spanish or French to them, but it would severely limit what I could actually say. I have no idea, for example, how to say "stinky stinky bat" in Spanish. In French, I think I could manage "Chauve-souris tres, tres malodorant," but it just doesn't have the same, peurile ring to it, now does it?

But I'm thinking of getting some Spanish language music CDs and maybe some DVDs. (Any good recommendations? Besides the Muzzy program, which is, like, a million dollars?) And when they girls are a little older, there are some Spanish language playgroups and music classes around here that they could do. I'm also going to keep on encouraging their sitter to do some Spanish with them -- giving her some Spanish books and games to work with would probably be helpful. And yes, yes, French would be nice too, of course, as would countless other languages, but I'm sticking with what's most practical for now. So, pipe down, all you Francophiles out there. (That includes you, Grandma, rolling in your grave because you think French is the "international language," and because, let's face it, you were kind of a bigot.)

In the meantime, we will continue to work on expanding our lexicon of English words for bodily functions, odors and excretions. Poop-o-rific!

The stinky winky sisters! (featuring my recent hatchet job of Clio's bangs and Elsa's WILD hair)

The Disappearing Nap

Roper — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

Yes, I know; I have no right to complain. My girls have generally been great sleepers, and we can't realistically expect them to go on sleeping 14 hours a day forever (12 at night, two at their nap). But still, it is with considerable sorrow that I must announce that the afternoon nap, generally taken between 12:30 and 2:30 every day, appears to be on its way out. For the last couple of weeks, the girls have gone many a day without ever actually falling asleep at naptime. Or if they have fallen asleep, it's only been for about half an hour. Our precious, precious hours of midday respite -- dwindling! (Maybe this is just a phase? Please, let it be just a phase!)

It may be in part because the girls are so enthusiastic about talking to each other lately. They really do like to chatter back and forth. I wonder if it might be worth trying to separate them during naptime, as one reader mentioned she did with her kids. The other problem is that they seem to both enjoy taking massive dumps right as their naps are starting, which is definitely not conducive to sleep, and requires an interruptive diaper change. (Sorry, TMI?)

But if I am truly honest, I must admit that the gals just don't seem to need a nap like they used to. They are definitely tired by bedtime, and maybe a little crankier than usual. But they're not a mess. And they aren't sleeping any later in the morning (in spite of the recent super-light-blocking "Eclipse" curtains we bought.) So, my sense is that this is just a natural (sigh) inevitable (sniff) development.

The good news is that they don't seem to mind being left in their cribs for about an hour to chatter, look at books, etc. So hopefully we can -- for some time -- keep up the ritual of having "quiet time" in bed for an hour or so after lunch. (Which, frankly, I think we ALL should get, regardless of age.) Again, though, getting them to stay quiet is an increasing problem. But maybe now that they're getting a little older and more capable of understanding we can start trying to "enforce" the quiet part of quiet time. (Anyone who has had luck with this, I'm all ears!)

On the flip side -- and there always is a flip side, isn't there? -- they really are starting to pitch in more around the house. Last night, Elsa saw a spot of partially-dried ketchup on the floor under the dining room table and announced her intention to "clean up." She went and got her toy broom and dustpan (aww....) and gave it a shot. I suggested that a sponge might work better, gave her one, and doggone it, that girl totally cleaned up the ketchup! She even used the abrasive side of the sponge, which you've really got to do with dried ketchup. Of course, Clio wanted to do some cleaning too, and before I knew it, we were having a whole sponge-a-palooza:

(Clio is now in the habit of saying "Please" and/or "Cheese" anytime a camera is aimed at her, hence the silly face.)

And finally, one last thing, which I'm posting way down here because I hate to use this blog for blatant self-promotion, but as some of you may know, last spring I finished a novel I'd been working on since before the girls were born. My agent has been trying to find a publisher for it since the summer, and though we've had some near misses and very positive feedback, the state of publishing in this economy and the competition when it comes to new writers has made it pretty tough. So, I entered my novel, EDEN LAKE, in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest, and just found out that I made it to the quarter-finals!

So, if you're curious to see some of my fiction writing, and you have the time, check out the excerpt, which you can download here. (It says "ready to buy?" on the download button in the upper right, but it's actually free.) If you like it and feel compelled to leave a review, that would be awesome -- feel free to mention that you're a reader of this blog. Whether or not I advance to the next round depends in part on how many and the quality of reviews I get. The novel, FYI, is a family drama set against the backdrop of a kids' summer camp in Maine. (There's lots of 70s and 80s nostalgia for my fellow Gen-X-ers out there.....) I like to think it's a fun and compelling read. Thanks in advance, and please forgive me for pimping myself in this manner.

Overheard

Roper — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:09:00 GMT

A definite check in the "positives" column for having twin toddlers: getting to hear them talk to each other. Yesterday morning, while I was getting ready for work, the girls woke up and I overheard the following conversation:

Elsa: (excited) I making a big poopie, Kee-o!

Clio: (No response)

Elsa: (Even more excited) I make a BIG poopie, Kee-o!

Clio: (Conciliatory) That's OK, Elsa.

What's funniest to me is hearing them using phrases Alastair and I use, with the same intonation. (No, "I make a big poopie" is not one of these. Though I guess we've been known to say "wow -- you made a big poopie." To the girls, that is.) A popular one right now is "Be right back!" -- often with hands held up, palms out. Sometimes it means they're going to the other side of the room, but sometimes it means they're going to attempt to go upstairs or outside or somewhere else I'd rather they didn't go without my supervision. No matter where they're headed, it's quite clear that I'm supposed to stay put while they run their "errand." (Just as I expect them to stay put when I say "be right back" and run downstairs to change the laundry or upstairs to get something, etc. etc.)

Clio will often gently chide Elsa if she's doing something Clio doesn't approve of: "No, ELsa," she'll say -- sounding very much a bossy big sister (though she's 9 minutes younger). Meanwhile, Elsa doesn't scold Clio much, but does like to check in with her and make sure she's taken care of. Last night at dinner, for example, she asked for a piece of bread. As I went to get it for her, I heard her say, "You want bread, Kee-o?"

People often ask me if they have any sort of "twin talk" between them, and I can't say that I've ever noticed anything along these lines. They seem to speak to each other in the same toddler-English they use with us, though they do seem to be a little more tuned into each other's pronunciation. There have been times when I can't figure out what one of them is trying to say or ask for, and the other offers a translation of sorts. There are also times when the two of them just crack each other up, and -- as with any good inside joke -- I can't quite figure out what's so funny. But they obviously think it's hilarious. I love that they can make each other laugh. (Anyone out there have experiences with actual "twin talk"? I'm so curious to know what it's like and if it really happens...)

The only drawback to all this sisterly gabbing: once they start, it can be hard for them to stop. A couple of times recently we haven't been able to get them to settle down and take their nap because they're having such a grand old time babbling back and forth to each other, throwing stuffed animals and books into each other's cribs, talking about their bowel movements, etc.

On the flip side, some mornings when they wake up they're content just to chat amongst themselves for awhile, so A. and I can stay in bed a little longer. And sleepily, smilingly eavesdrop on those precious conversations.

You know it's hard out here for a toddler.

Roper — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:40:00 GMT

Poor Elsa. She's had a rough week. First off, she's still having poop issues. (Can you believe it? I managed to go a whole month and a half without writing about poop!) This in spite of a very fiber-rich diet and lots of liquids. She goes most days, but I think she holds off as long as possible, and then when she does go, it's quite traumatic. Things are....well, large. A week ago, I spent ten minutes sitting on the floor with her and holding her and rubbing her back while she labored. It seriously was like that -- I had visions of myself, thirty years from now, helping her as she gives birth to her first child, rubbing her back and saying, "you know, this reminds me of when you were little, and you were having constipation issues...."

Hm. I don't know why I'm assuming that I would be there while Elsa is laboring. I guess sometimes mothers do that. Especially on TV. (Wasn't the whole freakin' Cosby family in the room with Sandra while she pushed?) But my mother certainly wasn't there when I was in labor, and that was A-OK with me.

In any case. I never could have anticipated that part of being a parent would be comforting my child while she tries to do her business. And that there would be something very sweet and tender about it. (About the comforting, that is. Not the...oh never mind.) I am beginning to think, however, that it's time to bring in the big guns in an attempt to get to the bottom of (ha ha) this problem. Has anyone out there had any luck with mineral oil?

The other thing that's been going on with Elsa is that she's been getting uncharacteristically shy and freaked out around semi-unfamiliar people. On Friday night, one of my oldest, dearest friends (whom Elsa has met several times) and her boyfriend came over, and Elsa was miserable. She cried and buried her head in my shoulder, clung to me, refused to let me put her down. She did this the following day at the beginning of a play date / field trip with a different friend of mine and her daughter, then freaked out yet again that evening when the same folks from the night before came back. So strange! She's usually fearless when it comes to seeing and meeting new people -- asking them to pick her up, play with her, tell her their life story within minutes of meeting them. Why, all of a sudden, is she a shrinking violet? A clinging vine? A crying...er...chrysanthemum?

And now, to top it all off, she's got a major head cold. Last night was like old times -- she was waking up every few hours and I had to go into the nursery to try to comfort her back to sleep. (Unlike old times, however, I had nothing to offer her in the boob department.) In the morning, the poor kid's hair was plastered to her face with mucus and when she said "Mommy" it sounded like "Bombi." She's been sleepy and slimy all day since. And, oh yes, I should mention that two days ago, Alastair left on tour for two weeks. How is it that they always know to get sick right when he leaves?

Ah, but now I am feeling sorry for myself, when it is Miss Elsa I should pity. She's had a rough go of it. But she has remained in pretty good spirits, considering. Atta girl. Here's hoping that next week all the bowel movements are easy, the social interactions are pleasant, and the nasal passages are clear.

Poopophobia

Roper — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:27:00 GMT

Sorry to post yet again about bodily functions -- I won't do it again for a while -- but with little'uns it's kind of hard to avoid. My apologies, also, to future Elsa. I have visions of her coming home from school on her compost-powered hoverboard, in tears, having just seen this post broadcasted on the web-browser blackboard in her homeroom by some mean, popular hacker-girl trying to sabotage Elsa's chances at winning class president. "Mom, you told the entire world about my elimination habits 15 years ago on one of those "plog" things? What's WRONG with you? Now no one will want to go to the prom with me!" (Because some things will never change...)

Of course, the long-term effects of this blog on my children and their prom date prospects are a whole other can of worms, which I will surely open and examine here sometime, but not today. Today, let's talk about #2. And how lately, Elsa seems quite upset by the whole business of doing her business.

I don't think this has anything to do with Bobby, incidentally; it started before I even really tried getting the girls to sit on the guy (which I still don't do with any real regularity -- ha. Regularity.) It actually began a few weeks ago, when she was constipated. Trying to go was obviously difficult and uncomfortable for her, and many times Jean or I would end up holding her or trying to comfort her while she strained and whimpered and her face turned red. It's really a heartbreaking experience to watch a constipated baby or toddler, as I'm sure many of you out there know. You want so much to help, but there's really nothing you can do. They don't find it particularly funny when you start chanting "Push it out! Shove it out! Waaayy out!" or get excited when you tell them this means they can have all the blueberries and dried apricots they want -- mommy won't say "no more" after a while like she usually does out of fear of the opposite problem.

So, poor little Elsa. Straining and crying and making all manner of weird faces over the course of a few days, until things improved, with help from some pureed prunes and adjustment of the milk / water intake ratio. Now, things are back to normal, er, consistency-wise. But she still gets upset every time she goes number two. Just before, she cries and says "poo poo! poo poo!" Frequently, she won't go, and this happens a few times before she finally does -- and afterward, she's usually instantly fine. I don't think it bothers her to have a dirty diaper. It's just the anticipation and the process itself.

(I'm Sorry, Elsa. This is so not helping your prom date prospects. But you know what? If some guy is so shallow and immature as to let your poopophobia at 19 months keep him from dating you, well, I think you can do better. Anyway, why is he scouring the web for posts about you from 16 years ago? Isn't that kind of stalker-ish and weird? I'm going to speak to the boy's parents. What's their iHologramphone number?)

I'm wondering if maybe she's still traumatized by the constipation experience, and now associates #2 with pain and suffering. Or is this something else? The anal retentive stage? I thought that came later. And was something little boys were more prone to... Anyway, we just continue to comfort Elsa when she's upset, encourage and praise her for going #2, and for the moment I'm not going to push the Bobby, which hasn't gone over well in these situations. Hopefully, soon, this too shall pass. Just like a ... oh never mind.

Prom is for losers anyway, right?

Poison Control Call #2

Roper — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:34:00 GMT

Me: Um, hi, I think my daughter may have swallowed a crayon. Or part of one.

(We were drawing -- Elsa and Clio and me. Well, sort of. They've just gotten to the point where they vaguely understand the concept of scribbling. They mostly prefer putting the crayons in their boxes and taking them out again. Anyway, Elsa was standing on the paper -- a cut-open paper shopping bag, actually -- and I thought it would be fun to trace her foot. But not long after I did, she became mildly distraught. I thought it was because I got some crayon on her toenails. Not that this is the sort of thing that would normally bother her, but who knows? Maybe the girl just didn't dig blue toenails, right? It's a little out there, a little weird. So I wiped off the crayon as best I could, but she kept whimpering, and it gradually escalated to crying. Then she was putting her fingers in her mouth and making "yuck" faces, much like she did after she ate dishwasher detergent.)

PC: She'll be fine. Crayons are non-toxic.

(Phew! Yes, that's right! In fact, I've known this for as long as I could read. I remember looking at Crayola crayon boxes and seeing those words, front and center: "Non-toxic." (And then something about different brilliant colors...) And I remember asking my mother what it meant. In fact, I've probably known that crayons are non-toxic longer than I've known that bees die when they sting you and no two snowflakes are alike. Not that this stopped me from calling poison control...)

Me: OK, but she seems pretty unhappy. She's been crying for like ten minutes, and she's sort of hiccuping and burping now. And she just looks really uncomfortable.

(In fact, she'd squatted down in a corner and was looking red-faced and slightly bug-eyed, almost like she was trying to poop. I tried to give her water, but she wasn't interested. Clio, meanwhile, had started whining in sympathy. Which made it hard to hear the poison control lady when she said....)

PC: She'll be fine. Crayons are non-toxic.

(Right. We established that. When I was four.)

Me: But is it possible that she'd feel sick after swallowing one? I mean, I don't know for sure that she did swallow a crayon. It's just sort of a theory. We were drawing, and I was tracing her foot, and then all of a sudden she got upset. But now she's making these kind of weird sounds, and....

PC: Is the crayon caught in her throat? Is she choking on it?

(Yes. My daughter is choking on a fucking crayon, and I'm here talking on the phone with you.)

Me: No. She's not choking. She's just...I mean, I'm just wondering, would swallowing a crayon make her this unhappy?

(Even if it was a sucky, undesirable color, like burnt umber, or that stupid "cornflower" that barely shows up?)

PC: It probably just didn't taste good. Try giving her a popsicle or a drink of water or something. She'll be fine.

Me: OK. Thanks. A sphincter says what?

PC: What?

Me: Exactly.

(Within five minutes, Elsa had recovered completely and was snuggling in my lap pointing and yelping at pictures of bunnies and fish. I still don't know whether or not she actually swallowed a crayon. We'll see if a brilliant-colored, non-toxic little something shows up in her diaper tomorrow...)

Elsa in happier times, eating yogurt and...something else I can't identify. But definitely not crayons.

The Word of the Month Club

Roper — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:10:00 GMT

In the beginning -- well, back when the girls were around 11 months old -- there was "Dah!" meaning dog, (or pretty much anything with four legs) and it was good. About a month later came "nana" (banana, then any food), and soon after that it was "cah" (car) and "shizz" (shoes) and so on. But it seemed like each time a new word was acquired, the old one suddenly fell out of fashion and they'd rarely if ever say it. (Dah? What's a dah? Come on, Mommy, let's talk about shizz!)

There are definitely still word "fads" around here -- "babies" is the big one this week -- but in the last month or so it seems like finally the girls are hanging onto multiple words, and employing them with increasing accuracy. Clio is the more verbal of the two; she tends to use more words (and signs) than Elsa, and is eager to learn new ones. Elsa, meanwhile, is more interested in honing her gross motor skills (i.e. climbing, pillaging, plundering, ransacking). Of course, we suspected all along that this might be the case. Elsa was always ahead physically, but Clio started cooing and babbling well before she did. Ah, yes, I remember it well.....(Flashback! Wavy screen....)

Ha -- at the time, this seemed incredibly impressive and interactive to us. It's all relative, ain't it?

Anyway, we're having fun seeing both girls add more words to their vocabularies. I'd say between them they have maybe 10 or so in all, and they obviously understand much more than that. But the real language "explosion" that I hear people talk about hasn't come yet. In fact, I think in general E & C are a little behind the curve in their language acquisition skills. I'm not worried, though. It's supposedly normal for twins to talk later than singleton kids. It can be due in part to premature birth (not the case here, as ours were born at a healthy 37 weeks, at 5 pounds each), but can also be a result of the way caregivers communicate and interact with twins. It's a little sad, actually: twins don't get as much one-on-one time with parents or caregivers, so they don't get as many opportunities to learn and practice verbal communication. And because wrangling twins can be stressful and tiring, caregivers tend to talk to their kids a little less and use more quick directives ("drink your milk," "don't take your sister's book," "come here," etc.). Apparently this is why second children sometimes talk later, too.

Then there's the "Twin talk" theory; that twins communicate with each other in their own "language," so they're slower to learn the language of us big people. I haven't really seen much evidence of this between Elsa and Clio, unless you count stealing toys or food away from each other causing the other to scream and cry as some special form of "communication." Or, maybe their twin talk is so secret and sophisticated that I don't even notice it. Maybe they send telepathic messages to each other: "Hey, mom's trying to get us ready to go out somewhere in the cah. Let's both poop!"

I'm curious to hear from readers -- especially moms of twins -- when did the language thing really "take off" for your kids?

The Diaper Chronicles

Roper — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:23:00 GMT

A few notes on diapers (and related matters) in the Baby Squared household. Note: this post involves graphic discussion of matters scatalogical and butt-o-logical. Reader discretion advised. Because the writer certainly didn't exercise any.

1. Our babies got back, apparently. A couple of weeks ago, we had to switch from size 3 diapers to size 4. We use Seventh Generation, and their size 3 diapers claim to go from 16 - 28 pounds, but my girls are nowhere near 28 pounds! I guess there are some long, tall, skinny-assed 28-pound babies out there that these diapers fit. I would be incredibly curious to see what these children look like. Meanwhile, the size 4 diapers puportedly fit babies from 22-37 pounds. Again, I seriously doubt that either of my girls are 22 pounds yet, but apparently they have 22-37 pound booty, because the size 3 diapers were just not doing the job. I couldn't get the sides to overlap front to back. I had to stre-e-e-tch the tabs, so that sometimes it looked like the girls were wearing string bikinis. Very puffy, bulky, crinkly string bikinis. Not very good for poop containment. And speaking of poop....

2. Solid food poop stinks. Literally and figuratively. Back in the day, when the girls were getting nothing but breastmilk, their poop smelled like buttered popcorn. Seriously! It was almost pleasant. Now -- ugh. Nasty. Multi-hued. Unpredictable. And the fact that they're more mobile and squirmy on the changing table makes cleaning up that much more treacherous. They're also doing their business a lot more frequently, it seems, and at all hours of the day. Clio, especially. In fact, Alastair composed a little song that we like to sing about Clio and her new...er...nocturnal habits:

Sleep pooper! She poops in her sleep!

Poop sleeper! She sleeps in her poop!

3. If it feels good, do it, right? Yes, of course. It's perfectly natural for babies and children to touch themselves down there. But must they do it while having their diapers changed? I don't want to discourage this sort of happy exploration. I don't want to be saying "no, no, no," while they're getting to know themselves, doin' what comes naturally, etc. But what do you do when your baby is gleefully plunging their little hands into a big ole mess? How do you expain to an 11 month old that yes, it's perfectly OK to touch their own bodies, just NOT NOW, PLEASE! Please.

You know what? I'm sorry. I've gone too far. I've said too much. Special apologies to all you non-parent readers out there. Let me attempt to make it up to you with this very sweet, non-butt-or-poop-or-anything-else-related picture of the girls on their first Thanksgiving, taking a joyride on their new Winnie the Poop -- I mean Pooh -- rider.

Poop poop! Here we come!